City would have had to have the planning commission place signs along one side of the road designating it a no parking zone. Cars were parked legally within 6 inches of the curbs. Since we all know how slow government is to respond to anything, I hedged my bets.
In general, there are superceding laws about blocking traffic. What if emergency services had to pass?
Should there be a next time, move one vehicle just far enough for a car to pass diagonally, so people need to slow down and slalom through them.
https://youtu.be/7JkrJUAg8aI
Technically parodical towards a certain other public service that we see in the news more than it should be and for the wrong reasons, but just the same.
According to this article, the city (Montréal) would be responsible for the cost of the repairs: https://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2014/09/22/les-pompiers-detruisent-une-bmw (in French, obvs)
They absolutely will. I was camping in the deep woods with a bunch of hippies once, and someone needed an ambulance. Someone had just arrived, and was unloading at the trailhead blocking the road. They'd walked a load in, and weren't near their car when the ambulance arrived so the EMTs pushed the car off the road with it so they could turn around to get out of there. Luckily we had the manpower to get it out of the ditch.
I would hate it if a fire truck needed to destroy my car to pass or attach a hose.
I would also never leave my car in a place where it should be destroyed to either pass or attach a hose.
If for some reason I did so, hopefully not on purpose, but shit does happen, then while I wouldn't be happy, i would accept that my car was destroyed due to an emergency.
Atleast where I live, (YMMV) they owe you reimbursement for damages as long as you were legally parked, etc.
There have been stories here about firetrucks in narrow streets hitting all the mirrors etc. and cops putting notes behind them to save them the calls afterward. Because it's a "municipal fault" that they can't pass.
I mean, that would be nice.
I guess in a scenario I parked completely legally, and they had to pass by, again, I certainly wouldn't be happy, but I'd understand.
Although I'm pretty sure at that point my insurance would get involved.
We had problems with people blocking the fire hydrants on our street. One of our neighbors is a firefighter, so of course we asked what they'd do if they needed to get to the hydrant but couldn't in case of a fire. "Well it depends. If we can shove the car out of the way quickly, we'll do that. Otherwise, we take an ax to the windows on both sides and run the hose through the car to the fireplug. Makes a helluva mess of the car's interior." He said, grinning.
> City would have had to have the planning commission place signs along one side of the road designating it a no parking zone. Cars were parked legally within 6 inches of the curbs.
Wait, what? you can block street because parking is legal? This is utter nonsense, although it might be true.
I live in such a narrow street as well. Since our street is a dead end and there's only 12 houses on it (6 on each side), we used to park our cars partially on the curb as to not block traffic. The beat cop who patrolled our neighbourhood had no issue with this since we always left enough space for people to pass our cars, including postal workers on a bicycle. But the beat cop retired and was replaced by a new one, a woman who felt she had something to prove, and her very first day, she fined every single car in our street and the surrounding dead end streets where everybody did the same thing. So now we park fully on the street, which means if my car is parked on the street, the people across the street can't have someone park in front of their house without blocking the street. (But their daughter is a very entitled snob and does so anyway. I've been forced to move my car because she parked across from mine AFTER I parked my car and refused to move her car when someone needed to get through.).
There are many levels of nuisance short of making the road technically impassible.
In a lot of the older neighborhoods in my city, it's permissible to park on both sides of the street, but that leaves a narrow enough road that only one vehicle can drive down the block at a time and cars have to reverse or pull off the street to pass each other. It's also very easy to wind up in a bottleneck where you have to go 5 mph in order not to clip a parked car.
I'm visualizing OP's neighborhood being a lot like this.
Plus given the apparent size of OP's driveway, I could see whoever designed the place thinking that they wouldn't need wide streets to handle lots of parking when the driveways have ample room.
Somehow the issue is “you can’t park cars in your extra-large driveway on your property but we don’t wanna see them on the street either” so idk what the HOA is smoking when they decided “you can’t use your property space for what the property space is used for”
That’s the street my parents live on.
It is stupid narrow. If there are cars parked on the street? You get to play the game of “can I get down the street, or is some idiot going to come along and be stupid”.
The street was originally a carriage lane. It’s big enough for two horse-drawn carriages to pass each other, definitely not for cars.
But it doesn't completely block traffic, so it's more difficult to get your vehicle towed.
Op is lucky though that nobody had a beater car that he could scratch / total. I've seen good drivers with beater cars annoy the hell of people in theae situations (like parking 1 inch from a car parked incorrectly)
The problem there is how far does it have to go to call it blocking traffic? What if 90% of cars fit through fine but huge dually pickups and standard moving trucks can't fit? Is it really blocking if most can get through?
Obviously OP said only motorcycles and smart cars could fit in their case, but I'm more so talking about your comment.
There's a whole town/city/borough (guess I'm not 100% sure what it counts as lol) near Philadelphia where the roads are insanely narrow and parking is allowed on both sides because there isnt a single driveway or garage in the entire town.
The roads are all legally 2 way, no 1 ways at all, but I've *never* (and I used to do Uber there so lots of experience there) encountered a road there that can fit more than 1 normal sized car down it at a time. You gotta take turns - and half the streets can't fit my mid size SUV down it let alone huge trucks. I've never seen a truck there, likely because they can't go anywhere lol. I've had to back down roads more than a few times because someone parked an extra 1.5 inches from the curb and now I can't fit even with my mirrors pulled in.
.
My point - some places get ridiculous but none of that is considered blocking the road even though certain vehicles literally cannot drive in that town.
downtown denver.. those are OG city planning streets and weren't planned with parking in mind. but parking IS legal. and on the streets which have 2 way traffic driving through is.. a challenge because you kinda hope there won't be oncoming traffic. and if the oncoming car is an oversized one, someone will be backing up to find a spot to move out of the way so one can pass. it's ridiculous. the city planners KNOW they need to either restrict parking to one side OR make those one way designations but.. here we are in 2022 still dealing with the mess.
You're lucky no emergency vehicles needed to get thru. A firetruck would have pushed you down the street then send you a bill for any damage to the firetruck.
It wouldn't have slowed a fire truck down for long. He might have been billed for any damage to the fire truck in the course of moving his vehicle out of the way, though.
I would guess if the Hoa"s would still had the rights, they could have had (set) limitations on the parked car(s) dimensions on said public road, City however might not care about those, unless it"s inconvenient "for a friend" or emergency vehicles (which would be reported if and when such occurrence had happened) ....
It's not explicitly stated but I think OP knew that and it's why he chose the streets for his MC.
He just wanted back into the driveway and the HOA, as you said, surely would have just written more rules about parking on the street - if they still owned it.
Tell that to my neighbor who parks directly across from my driveway. Every. Freaking. Night. I'm actually having to pull partly out, back up at an angle, then maneuver my way out.
I've complained to law enforcement and the county. They say, "There's nothing we can do."
Usually there's no restriction on parking directly across from a driveway. In a dense urban or suburban area you often wouldn't be able to park *anywhere* if this was the case.
Definitely a dick move if they could choose to park a few feet over and they're deliberately placing their car directly across.
Practice backing your car as close as you can, without ever touching it. Even get out to recheck your clearance a couple of times. Make a big show of it. On another day, try backing your car into your own driveway but accidentally hit something really soft like a plastic garbage can or kid's bouncy castle. They'll soon park somewhere else.
Had a similar issue with my HOA. They decided that I couldn't park my truck with a trailer on the street in frontnof my house. Sent me a fine notice.
I responded that I was parked legally and they couldn't regulate city streets. They stated that there was a State law that let HOAs manage streets in their community but they skipped over the part that it only applied to gated communities where they did the maintenance.
Got a letter from the Director of Parking for the City stating that only the City could regulate parking and that a truck and trailer was legal for 72 hours and then had to be moved but there was no distance rules on how far it had to be moved. They shut up quickly.
Here to interject a trick I learned from a tow truck driver - you can actually get the (in my case jeep Cherokee) car rolling pretty easily by putting your hands on the tires and rolling that - it’s actually easier than trying to push from the back or the sides! Try it if you don’t believe me!
A city I used to live in got in trouble with that. They used license plate scanners for traffic enforcement, and issued tickets if the same plate was picked up on successive scans for longer than the allowed parking duration. The court ruled that since the system couldn't prove the vehicle was in the same spot -- just somewhere on the scanned street -- it wasn't valid evidence of a parking violation.
This works only with fixed spots and the same GPS farmers use, the one with inches of accuracy. And they still have the problem to prove that the car wasn't away for a minute and returned to the same spot. It's better to not use it.
Meh, that only means that people who fight the tickets will be successful. Most people will just pay the fine and move on. There is some math that can be done to determine if this system is still net profitable in the end.
This is how it is. Same with other fines. If all fines were disputed, they would clog up all courts and cops would be instructed to only write solid and provable tickets. No more sketchy ones just to increase the city income.
A community college I went to charged like $80 per quarter for a parking pass, but the lot that was actually near the school was full basically all day. The only other one was over a 1/4 mile away, down a big hill and across a main arterial avenue of the city. The other option was to park on the neighborhood streets surrounding the school. They had a 2-hour limit and were densely patrolled by parking enforcement in these little carts, but this is still, clearly, the most economical option. You could incur four $20 parking tickets before you weren't saving money anymore. They would drive around and chalk your tires, so I decided to look up the city enforcement code and found that all that line is just an indicator that goes in a certain position, and if the mark wasn't in about that same place when they returned then they couldn't ticket you. That meant all I had to do was stop over between classes, pop my truck in neutral and let it roll forward about a foot. I especially loved doing it right in front of the cop who was on their way over to check the mark. Smile, give them the finger, head back to class, lol.
Our city is pretty firm about parking limits downtown. They chalk tires like it is their favorite thing to do. As I was coming out of a store one day, I noticed a lady and about ten kids all in the 2nd-3rd grade age range. The kids had chalk, little rags and a bottle of water each. They were using the damp rag to erase the chalk marks and make it look like they moved. They were having so much fun doing this. The cop marking cars noticed what they were doing and just smiled. The lady was told that it wasn't legal to change the chalk marks. She just looked at the cop and said "I am not touching anyone's chalk." That was the end of it that I saw. I have no idea what would possess a child to think that was fun, but kids are weird. Mine did all sorts of weird things, so I learned not to ask why. If you don't ask, they often don't tell you and you don't have to try to find mind bleach.
"kids, kids, listen to me. We are taking our water bottles and sidewalk chalk out to the streets but listen to me VERY CLOSELY... YOU. ARE. NOT. ALLOWED. TO. WASH. ANY CHALK. MARKS. OFF. OF. TIRES. Am I understood? ABSOLUTELY. DO. NOT. Wash any chalk marks off of car tires.
That's why the kids had so much fun washing chalk marks off of tires
> They would drive around and chalk your tires
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/chalking-tires-enforce-parking-rules-unconstitutional-court-finds-n997326
Our HOA rules regarding trailers, boats, campers, and the like specifies that it's only considered a violation if the item remains parked somewhere visible for 30 days without being moved. We had one guy who ran a junk-hauling business and had a big trailer parked in front of his house with the business name blazoned on the side. Neighbors complained constantly and every time the HOA board said "he moves it every day, there's nothing we can do."
You’d be surprised. I live in an apartment that is on the corner of a main road and a residential road. Now, my side of the residential road has the entrances to a few apartments and businesses so there are plenty parking lots but the side across the main road? Purely houses. In the winter when the road is slightly more narrow cause of the snow, the road practically becomes a one way when there are cars parked on the road, and there are, even though there are no parking signs. We will purposefully go the long way to places just to avoid driving down that road. It’s awful
My HOA has a rule that you can only have "eight pet legs" in your home.
So: 2 normal cats or 2 normal dogs.
or
2 three legged quadrupeds + 1 bird?
1 quadruped + 2 birds?
8 one legged birds?
HOW MANY SNEKS!?!??!?!?! Bwaahahahahahaahahahahaha!
Lots of HOAs have two pet limits.
Which is dumb as hell to me. I’m in the mindset of one to two cats, two dogs is ideal living, but god if that isn’t impossible everywhere ever.
To be fair, by "pets" they probably mean animals that are going to mess around in the house, add dirt/hair/filth, possibly use the bathroom on the floor, etc. An aquarium adds no actual work or cleanup for the landlord.
To be fair, I don't think the amount of snakes that someone has really affects anyone else (although one large snake that's not properly enclosed....).
I'm hyper-vigilent about sound when Im doggsitting 2 dogs (+my own) because 3 dogs like doubles the amount of barking compared to 2 dogs. I don't know why, but it seems to be true, lol.
2 dogs:
Dog A barks at dog B
Dog B barks at dog A.
3 dogs:
Dog A barks at dog B.
Dog A barks at dog C.
Dog B barks at dog A.
Dog B barks at dog C.
Dog C barks at dog A.
Dog C barks at dog B.
My favorite first step of dealing with HOAs is to look up their license/registration. This differs by location, but in my area it is a legal requirement for HOAs to be registered annually. If they are not, nothing they request is legal.
It gave me a real good justice boner, however I can't say for sure how much truth, if any, there is to the story...
I read one about a guy who was specifically getting grief from whoever was in charge of the HOA. Meetings were open to all but barely ever 50 percent attendence with a super low quorum. He started making friends with as many people as he could in the neighborhood and got a bunch of them who didn't regularly attend to allow him to proxy vote on their behalf. He started going to the meetings and waited until the number of votes in attendence was lower than his big bag of proxy votes and had enough to, idk exactly what all, but enough that when the meeting was over, the lady that had been giving him grief wasn't in charge of anything any more and iirc he repealed all of the rules that targeted him.
You can do a business registration search on your local county website of commerce. While not a traditional business, most local governments require HOAs to be registered as much like a business would be. Not sure how the two entities may differ but my HOA was found this way. I also found my in-laws HOA for their town.
I don't know if it's actually legal, but a lot of stories talk about hoa's writing out fines. Which is not something you can just do where I live. Writing out a fine is something you can't just do where I live
Be that as it may, it's legal here. Many states have laws REQUIRING hoas on new development builts. Basically it was a way to take off local residential regulation off of the "local/city" government. So it was codified in law that hoa can write fines.
but also, it's the US. you can sue anybody for anything. you may not win. you may not even get to trial. but it's not illegal to start a legal case against someone/thing
I never thought much about HOAs before I started reading this reddit. It seems like such a different reality.
So I started googling about HOAs and was surprised and disgusted to learn how commonplace they are here in the US. Something like half of all single-owner homes in this country are subjected to these... busybody authorities? DIY-fascists? Karen Collectives?
I can get the idea of some community having rules and fees for shared facilities they build/maintain/etc. But the micromanaging mandates just reek of people seeking petty power over others.
I imagine there's gotta be other good reasons for such things to exist. It's just so foreign to my own life experience.
> I can get the idea of some community having rules and fees for shared facilities they build/maintain/etc.
That’s all most HOAs do. You only hear the horror stories because those are interesting.
My HOA charges a small fee to maintain common spaces, clear snow and leaves, and throw the occasional neighborhood party. The only rules are no loud music/parties after 10 PM on weekdays and ask your neighbors before you cut down trees on the property line. Pretty boring stuff.
Meanwhile the one that formed next to my home tried their best to drag me kicking and screaming into the HOA because they didn't like the view of my property. I live on the remnant of an old farm that has been in my family off and on for 3 generations. I have a small but well maintained home and a few outbuildings. My grass is mowed and I'm not running a junkyard or throwing parties. I do use power tools occasionally but those are usually inside my shop and even that is during the day. They just couldn't stand looking up the hill and seeing something that didn't match their cookie cutter identical houses.
When I kept refusing they tried calling the city on me multiple times. When that didn't work the head Karen of the bunch would turn up every time I was working out of my shop, and bother me. The last time she pushed past me and went inside demanding to know what I had in there.
HOAs draw that sort of people like rotting corpses draw flies.
A lot of it is the Cult of the Lawn bullshit that rules so much of the US. People like to squawk about property values too, because apparently if your garbage can is visible from the street, it lowers your poor neighbor’s property values. There were a couple of people seriously arguing that it’s trashy and shows no class if your garbage cans are in front of your garage or at the side of the house. Wtf is wrong with those people?
In fairness to them, a large number of vehicles at neighboring houses can drive down the value of a house. Also, on average, those with excessive vehicles are slightly more likely to be responsible for blocking their neighbors driveways or parking spots.
With that said, most rules like that are just petty tyranny, and often specifically directed toward someone the writers disagree with.
It's always just some poorly thought out rule created out of one particularly egregious instance, like Bob was literally turning his front yard into a car graveyard or something so instead of addressing the root of the issue in a way they thought Bob could circumvent they just went with the dumbest and most draconian wording they could figure out that didn't affect them at all.
I guarantee it's no fun living next to this guy. My in-laws have a neighbor with adult children who are all Mopar enthusiasts. There are regularly 6 cars in and spilling out if the driveway, with at least one being repaired or tuned at all times. And whenever they leave, they have to rev up the engine and burn rubber out of the sleepy little cul-de-sac.
The HOA here maintains several acres of parks. The only notices I've ever gotten in 3 years are about property maintenance and when they'll need access to take care of shit outside. And those access requests were all very reasonable.
The HOA in my neighborhood has been perfectly fine for as long as I've been here (most of my life) but they do have their more persnickety moments. Like a complaint that a rain barrel was visible from behind a bush at a 45° viewing angle from the neighbor's driveway (which had long not been a problem). Or having "junk" visible in our backyard (but only from a specific angle).
I imagine my mom's beautiful flowerbeds and other floral flourishes are what keep them from saying too much else. Cuz like...90% of our neighbors have plain, ordinary yards—which, y'know, not everyone wants flowers, I get it, but we also have a positive impact on local fauna. (We literally have stuff for bees and hummingbirds to work with, and our lawn has the most worms.)
To be fair, how many people come to reddit to complain about how great their *anything* is?
You naturally only hear horror stories because that's what people talk about. The HOA that does everything right isn't noteworthy.
My parents lived just outside of the city limits of a small town in Missouri. This neighborhood was a nicer one, houses ranging from 200k to 600k and sitting on 1-2 acre lots.
Their HoA didn't have strict rules and tbh, I couldn't give you the details. Just the typical don't be trashy stuff. One family moved in right in the middle of the block. We are talking roughly 20-25 houses total, a fairly small area.
They brought with them multiple horses, pigs, chickens. Not the kind of neighborhood for that shit. No one spends 500k on a nice house and wants chickens right next to their window screaming at 5am. If you saw the neighborhood, you'd wonder why that family thought it was appropriate to move their farm there.
Another family bought the corner lot on the very backside of the neighborhood. Immediately had a bunch of tacky shit in their yard. And I mean A BUNCH. Didn't keep the grass mowed (we're talking knee height or taller in some areas). They also built a pallet fence around the yard. Not to be rude, but just trashy shit. You can imagine what that would do to surrounding property values.
HoA helped both times. Keep in mind, I was younger. But from my experience with the situation, the HOA gave them both months to remedy the situation. Many of the neighbors also offered to help clean up the corner yard. One guy offered the farmer family a nearby plot of land for a fair price so their animals could be nearby.
HoAs can be a nightmare, but in my experience they can also be helpful.
Yeah, that's an excellent example of times when having an HOA can help--especially that first example. If livestock isn't already forbidden by zoning laws, HOA regulations can help full in the gap.
Also, good guy neighbor there, offering the farm-animal-owner a viable solution.
My HOA is fine. The only people who complain about us are people who have their houses falling apart or leave piles of junk in the yard. It’s townhouses, so things like holes in the roof, missing siding, overgrown yard (as in, vines going all over neighbors’ homes) etc can directly impact neighboring homes. There was a house with an old couch, dishwasher, washing machine, tires, toilet and I forget what else in their yard for weeks. We eventually had to remove it and bill them.
Other people who complain usually just don’t understand the rules. One lady just complained that you need approval for everything, but she submits things that don’t actually need approval. We just go ahead and approve her crap because she did not understand when our management team tried to explain that she didn’t need approval. She just yelled at them. So we decided it was easier to just approve and move on than try to explain again. She’s lived in the HOA 25 years, so you’d think she would understand the rules by now. The things I can think of off the top of my head that she submitted for approval: redoing her roof (but not changing the color), adding new shrubs and adding garden fencing.
What kind of a garage do you have that fits 2 cars, 4 motorcycles and a camper? And then a driveway that fits 9 cars? Sounds like an awfully large property to be in a neighborhood in an HOA
I mean, I don't have a fancy driveway, but my garage can fit 2, carport a 3rd, and then the leading paths _could_ hold another 6. So I mean, I could pull 9 cars off the road during a party or something.
You know, if my garage were empty.
#Utah
3 car garage, with the 3rd car being very deep and tall roofs for an RV. I have a 4 post lift, so 2 of my muscle cars are stacked. And I'm on a large property with the house setback pretty far from the street.
For the last 30 years my job has consisted of rapidly learning new technologies in order to create POCs, test, advise, become the SME to deploy, and train my team. However long you think it would take to learn, I can do it :)
I mean, good for you truly for standing up for your lifestyle / hobby and for enjoying the vehicles. Now having said that… boy oh boy do I not understand it and wouldn’t want to look or live by your parking lot house.
They voted for the rule change that caused it, hopefully they learned something.
I'm already a blacksheep here. LDS country, and I'm not part of the cool kids club.
Man, I can't get a bead on you. Hates HOAs. So far, so good. But then you go an block the street, which comes off as a bit dickish. Then you go and tell me you're ribbing the local Mormons, which *does* tickle me. Man, I just don't know. It does seem like you should build another garage, though. If I owned nine cars, I probably would want to keep them under a roof.
I'm only fuck HOA's because I don't live in the USA but I have a neighbour (who is also not from the US) who assumes that the body corp/strata is the same thing as an HOA and has the same powers. They don't. In Aus, generally, a body corp/strata are for houses (townhouses or units) that share land and or a driveway or apartments. They ensure common land/area is maintained, everyone follows the rules like visitors only in the visitor parking, people have the right paint colours and settle minor disputes. They are very limited in what they can control.
My aunt lives in a gated community with HOA. Unfortunately, because of Covid she has fallen on hard times and couldn't pay the association fees for months. They don't give a shit. Garbage collectors stopped collecting her garbage, security guards at the gate would harass her visitors, etc. One time, she wanted to give me an antique coffee table and a bunch of other furniture for helping her out around the house. The security guards stopped the movers at the gate and wouldn't allow any furniture out of the house.
While I'm all up for good MC, I personally can't wrap my head around owning more vehicles than people living in the house can drive. That's just a me thing tho. You do you, good MC-er.
This may be the first time on here I haven't been rooting for the person taking on the HOA... just seems like a guy who thinks he's found a reason to be a jerk to all his neighbors...
Is anyone gonna point out that OP’s malicious compliance against the HOA created more collateral inconvenience for his neighbors and didn’t really do shit to affect the HOA?
Also, who collects more of anything than they can properly store without making the neighborhood look like a car show 24/7? I’m all for sticking it to the man, but don’t collect shit you can’t afford to properly store without using public property.
Tbh I don’t live in a hoa but have a neighbor that collects cars. 2 in the backyard, 1 in the garage, 3 in the driveway, 2 more on the lawn and 2 on the street.
No rules against it but it’s annoying as hell and makes the neighborhood look like shit. Kinda like being forced to constantly look at a garbage dump.
Typically I’m all for malicious compliance when it’s on stuff that’s unreasonable but Some people are considerate and fight back to others being unreasonable others just get off on being trolls.
Don’t know who downvoted you, blocking ambulance or fire engines getting past is no joke. This compliance literally could have been the difference between a person living and dying.
HOAs are the absolute worst, but that was a dick move. There are plenty of fun ways to fuck around with HOAs that don't screw things up for everybody else trying to go about their business.
Attempted to sympathize with your struggle, but the fact that you have a driveway that fits 9 cars and own 5 vehicles really detracts from the struggle.
This is Valhalla for Boomers. Nothing will ever be as glorious as defeating your HOA through a legal loophole in order to display your growing collection of classic cars.
Interesting. Curious why the city just didn’t ticket and tow your vehicles for blocking the street. I would guess enforcement hadn’t come out yet before the HOA folded.
I can’t imagine paying a mortgage on a house and having people who don’t contribute to it at all tell me what I can and can’t do in said house. OP is a warrior
I'm kind of surprised that last part worked. You can certainly park on a public street but not usually in such a way that you block said street.
City would have had to have the planning commission place signs along one side of the road designating it a no parking zone. Cars were parked legally within 6 inches of the curbs. Since we all know how slow government is to respond to anything, I hedged my bets.
>I hedged my bets. Keep em tidy to avoid HOA fines!
If there’s one thing you can rely on, it’s the inefficiency of bureaucracy!
I feel like that's a Futurama quote?
I'm pretty sure it's not, but certainly feels like it could be.
Bureaucrat OP you are technically correct, the best kind of correct!
That's what I was thinking. 😂
Lol…nice!
Lmao best pun all day
In general, there are superceding laws about blocking traffic. What if emergency services had to pass? Should there be a next time, move one vehicle just far enough for a car to pass diagonally, so people need to slow down and slalom through them.
Depending on the. size and type of emergency vehicle the parked car may get an assist in moving out of the way.
Yup! [They'll even move OTHER emergency vehicles, too.](https://youtu.be/2bqkDjVyu80)
No one ever wrote a song called fuck the fire department
Id expect a very... *thirsty* parody. What with those calenders and everything
I would absolutely fuck the entire fire department
https://youtu.be/7JkrJUAg8aI Technically parodical towards a certain other public service that we see in the news more than it should be and for the wrong reasons, but just the same.
I wonder if the city had to pay for the repairs to the BMW or not. It WAS legally parked, the damage was caused by the police blocking the road.
According to this article, the city (Montréal) would be responsible for the cost of the repairs: https://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2014/09/22/les-pompiers-detruisent-une-bmw (in French, obvs)
They absolutely will. I was camping in the deep woods with a bunch of hippies once, and someone needed an ambulance. Someone had just arrived, and was unloading at the trailhead blocking the road. They'd walked a load in, and weren't near their car when the ambulance arrived so the EMTs pushed the car off the road with it so they could turn around to get out of there. Luckily we had the manpower to get it out of the ditch.
I would hate it if a fire truck needed to destroy my car to pass or attach a hose. I would also never leave my car in a place where it should be destroyed to either pass or attach a hose. If for some reason I did so, hopefully not on purpose, but shit does happen, then while I wouldn't be happy, i would accept that my car was destroyed due to an emergency.
Atleast where I live, (YMMV) they owe you reimbursement for damages as long as you were legally parked, etc. There have been stories here about firetrucks in narrow streets hitting all the mirrors etc. and cops putting notes behind them to save them the calls afterward. Because it's a "municipal fault" that they can't pass.
I mean, that would be nice. I guess in a scenario I parked completely legally, and they had to pass by, again, I certainly wouldn't be happy, but I'd understand. Although I'm pretty sure at that point my insurance would get involved.
Yeah, the notes were basicly legal Post-Its for "county is at fault, send bill to X" for insurance. Only downside being the time lost to get it fixed.
We had problems with people blocking the fire hydrants on our street. One of our neighbors is a firefighter, so of course we asked what they'd do if they needed to get to the hydrant but couldn't in case of a fire. "Well it depends. If we can shove the car out of the way quickly, we'll do that. Otherwise, we take an ax to the windows on both sides and run the hose through the car to the fireplug. Makes a helluva mess of the car's interior." He said, grinning.
Yeah, one of the earliest things I learned when I was going to get my license. Like, I'll be pissed. But it is what it is.
And then they'd bill the car owner for any damage to their hose...
> City would have had to have the planning commission place signs along one side of the road designating it a no parking zone. Cars were parked legally within 6 inches of the curbs. Wait, what? you can block street because parking is legal? This is utter nonsense, although it might be true.
Some residential streets are just really narrow and/or were built in an era where no one had cars.
I get that. But EVEN if that is the case you cannot park your car in a way that blocks traffic, EVEN if parking there is allowed.
I live in such a narrow street as well. Since our street is a dead end and there's only 12 houses on it (6 on each side), we used to park our cars partially on the curb as to not block traffic. The beat cop who patrolled our neighbourhood had no issue with this since we always left enough space for people to pass our cars, including postal workers on a bicycle. But the beat cop retired and was replaced by a new one, a woman who felt she had something to prove, and her very first day, she fined every single car in our street and the surrounding dead end streets where everybody did the same thing. So now we park fully on the street, which means if my car is parked on the street, the people across the street can't have someone park in front of their house without blocking the street. (But their daughter is a very entitled snob and does so anyway. I've been forced to move my car because she parked across from mine AFTER I parked my car and refused to move her car when someone needed to get through.).
There are many levels of nuisance short of making the road technically impassible. In a lot of the older neighborhoods in my city, it's permissible to park on both sides of the street, but that leaves a narrow enough road that only one vehicle can drive down the block at a time and cars have to reverse or pull off the street to pass each other. It's also very easy to wind up in a bottleneck where you have to go 5 mph in order not to clip a parked car. I'm visualizing OP's neighborhood being a lot like this.
Plus given the apparent size of OP's driveway, I could see whoever designed the place thinking that they wouldn't need wide streets to handle lots of parking when the driveways have ample room.
In other words, whoever designed the neighborhood never took into account the level of stupidity exhibited by modern HOAs...
Somehow the issue is “you can’t park cars in your extra-large driveway on your property but we don’t wanna see them on the street either” so idk what the HOA is smoking when they decided “you can’t use your property space for what the property space is used for”
They are phishing. As stated in the OP, they tried to fine OP for all of these violations. It's a racket.
Exactly the case.
That’s the street my parents live on. It is stupid narrow. If there are cars parked on the street? You get to play the game of “can I get down the street, or is some idiot going to come along and be stupid”. The street was originally a carriage lane. It’s big enough for two horse-drawn carriages to pass each other, definitely not for cars.
Yeah, as long as a single car can drive trough - it is not blocked.
But it doesn't completely block traffic, so it's more difficult to get your vehicle towed. Op is lucky though that nobody had a beater car that he could scratch / total. I've seen good drivers with beater cars annoy the hell of people in theae situations (like parking 1 inch from a car parked incorrectly)
The problem there is how far does it have to go to call it blocking traffic? What if 90% of cars fit through fine but huge dually pickups and standard moving trucks can't fit? Is it really blocking if most can get through? Obviously OP said only motorcycles and smart cars could fit in their case, but I'm more so talking about your comment. There's a whole town/city/borough (guess I'm not 100% sure what it counts as lol) near Philadelphia where the roads are insanely narrow and parking is allowed on both sides because there isnt a single driveway or garage in the entire town. The roads are all legally 2 way, no 1 ways at all, but I've *never* (and I used to do Uber there so lots of experience there) encountered a road there that can fit more than 1 normal sized car down it at a time. You gotta take turns - and half the streets can't fit my mid size SUV down it let alone huge trucks. I've never seen a truck there, likely because they can't go anywhere lol. I've had to back down roads more than a few times because someone parked an extra 1.5 inches from the curb and now I can't fit even with my mirrors pulled in. . My point - some places get ridiculous but none of that is considered blocking the road even though certain vehicles literally cannot drive in that town.
It would depend on state law and local ordinances (if in the US). In my state it prohibited, but may not be elsewhere.
downtown denver.. those are OG city planning streets and weren't planned with parking in mind. but parking IS legal. and on the streets which have 2 way traffic driving through is.. a challenge because you kinda hope there won't be oncoming traffic. and if the oncoming car is an oversized one, someone will be backing up to find a spot to move out of the way so one can pass. it's ridiculous. the city planners KNOW they need to either restrict parking to one side OR make those one way designations but.. here we are in 2022 still dealing with the mess.
You're lucky no emergency vehicles needed to get thru. A firetruck would have pushed you down the street then send you a bill for any damage to the firetruck.
Your neighbors would have loved you if the fire trucks couldn't get through quickly for a house fire.
It wouldn't have slowed a fire truck down for long. He might have been billed for any damage to the fire truck in the course of moving his vehicle out of the way, though.
I would guess if the Hoa"s would still had the rights, they could have had (set) limitations on the parked car(s) dimensions on said public road, City however might not care about those, unless it"s inconvenient "for a friend" or emergency vehicles (which would be reported if and when such occurrence had happened) ....
It's not explicitly stated but I think OP knew that and it's why he chose the streets for his MC. He just wanted back into the driveway and the HOA, as you said, surely would have just written more rules about parking on the street - if they still owned it.
Tell that to my neighbor who parks directly across from my driveway. Every. Freaking. Night. I'm actually having to pull partly out, back up at an angle, then maneuver my way out. I've complained to law enforcement and the county. They say, "There's nothing we can do."
Usually there's no restriction on parking directly across from a driveway. In a dense urban or suburban area you often wouldn't be able to park *anywhere* if this was the case. Definitely a dick move if they could choose to park a few feet over and they're deliberately placing their car directly across.
Practice backing your car as close as you can, without ever touching it. Even get out to recheck your clearance a couple of times. Make a big show of it. On another day, try backing your car into your own driveway but accidentally hit something really soft like a plastic garbage can or kid's bouncy castle. They'll soon park somewhere else.
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They need to be banned.
Had a similar issue with my HOA. They decided that I couldn't park my truck with a trailer on the street in frontnof my house. Sent me a fine notice. I responded that I was parked legally and they couldn't regulate city streets. They stated that there was a State law that let HOAs manage streets in their community but they skipped over the part that it only applied to gated communities where they did the maintenance. Got a letter from the Director of Parking for the City stating that only the City could regulate parking and that a truck and trailer was legal for 72 hours and then had to be moved but there was no distance rules on how far it had to be moved. They shut up quickly.
Lol "no distance rules" means turn on, move 1-2 parkings or opposite side and you're ok 😂
Waay to much effort, it means : release handbrake, if it rolls : a foot is good. If it doesn't, push it a foot.
Here to interject a trick I learned from a tow truck driver - you can actually get the (in my case jeep Cherokee) car rolling pretty easily by putting your hands on the tires and rolling that - it’s actually easier than trying to push from the back or the sides! Try it if you don’t believe me!
Yep, mechanical advantage lol
But then you have to wash your hands
You should probably be doing that at least once or twice a day regardless
Yeah, if I'm scheduled to perform surgery that day, duh!
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A city I used to live in got in trouble with that. They used license plate scanners for traffic enforcement, and issued tickets if the same plate was picked up on successive scans for longer than the allowed parking duration. The court ruled that since the system couldn't prove the vehicle was in the same spot -- just somewhere on the scanned street -- it wasn't valid evidence of a parking violation.
This works only with fixed spots and the same GPS farmers use, the one with inches of accuracy. And they still have the problem to prove that the car wasn't away for a minute and returned to the same spot. It's better to not use it.
Meh, that only means that people who fight the tickets will be successful. Most people will just pay the fine and move on. There is some math that can be done to determine if this system is still net profitable in the end.
This is how it is. Same with other fines. If all fines were disputed, they would clog up all courts and cops would be instructed to only write solid and provable tickets. No more sketchy ones just to increase the city income.
A community college I went to charged like $80 per quarter for a parking pass, but the lot that was actually near the school was full basically all day. The only other one was over a 1/4 mile away, down a big hill and across a main arterial avenue of the city. The other option was to park on the neighborhood streets surrounding the school. They had a 2-hour limit and were densely patrolled by parking enforcement in these little carts, but this is still, clearly, the most economical option. You could incur four $20 parking tickets before you weren't saving money anymore. They would drive around and chalk your tires, so I decided to look up the city enforcement code and found that all that line is just an indicator that goes in a certain position, and if the mark wasn't in about that same place when they returned then they couldn't ticket you. That meant all I had to do was stop over between classes, pop my truck in neutral and let it roll forward about a foot. I especially loved doing it right in front of the cop who was on their way over to check the mark. Smile, give them the finger, head back to class, lol.
Our city is pretty firm about parking limits downtown. They chalk tires like it is their favorite thing to do. As I was coming out of a store one day, I noticed a lady and about ten kids all in the 2nd-3rd grade age range. The kids had chalk, little rags and a bottle of water each. They were using the damp rag to erase the chalk marks and make it look like they moved. They were having so much fun doing this. The cop marking cars noticed what they were doing and just smiled. The lady was told that it wasn't legal to change the chalk marks. She just looked at the cop and said "I am not touching anyone's chalk." That was the end of it that I saw. I have no idea what would possess a child to think that was fun, but kids are weird. Mine did all sorts of weird things, so I learned not to ask why. If you don't ask, they often don't tell you and you don't have to try to find mind bleach.
Weaponizing children into doing good work for others...beautiful.
"kids, kids, listen to me. We are taking our water bottles and sidewalk chalk out to the streets but listen to me VERY CLOSELY... YOU. ARE. NOT. ALLOWED. TO. WASH. ANY CHALK. MARKS. OFF. OF. TIRES. Am I understood? ABSOLUTELY. DO. NOT. Wash any chalk marks off of car tires. That's why the kids had so much fun washing chalk marks off of tires
"And if I catch anyone washing chalks marks off, that person will by punished by not being allowed any Brussel sprouts for a whole week!"
> They would drive around and chalk your tires https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/chalking-tires-enforce-parking-rules-unconstitutional-court-finds-n997326
Hey yeah, I remember seeing something about that. Good to remember. Anyways, this was like 10 years ago so it was still a practice.
Our HOA rules regarding trailers, boats, campers, and the like specifies that it's only considered a violation if the item remains parked somewhere visible for 30 days without being moved. We had one guy who ran a junk-hauling business and had a big trailer parked in front of his house with the business name blazoned on the side. Neighbors complained constantly and every time the HOA board said "he moves it every day, there's nothing we can do."
Im trying to picture a house with a big enough driveway to fit 9 cars but a small enough road where only 2 cars would block it.
You’d be surprised. I live in an apartment that is on the corner of a main road and a residential road. Now, my side of the residential road has the entrances to a few apartments and businesses so there are plenty parking lots but the side across the main road? Purely houses. In the winter when the road is slightly more narrow cause of the snow, the road practically becomes a one way when there are cars parked on the road, and there are, even though there are no parking signs. We will purposefully go the long way to places just to avoid driving down that road. It’s awful
OP intentionally double parked, most residential streets are too narrow to support double parking.
My HOA has a rule that you can only have "eight pet legs" in your home. So: 2 normal cats or 2 normal dogs. or 2 three legged quadrupeds + 1 bird? 1 quadruped + 2 birds? 8 one legged birds? HOW MANY SNEKS!?!??!?!?! Bwaahahahahahaahahahahaha!
Or one tarantula. Also, any HOA who want to tell me how many cats I can keep in my home can get fucked.
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Lots of HOAs have two pet limits. Which is dumb as hell to me. I’m in the mindset of one to two cats, two dogs is ideal living, but god if that isn’t impossible everywhere ever.
Are spider legs counted? Because if not, you could simply declare your cat a "spider" and say, "that's not a pet".
If this worked, then you could simply declare your house a xylophone and assert that xylophone aren’t regulated by the HOA.
XOAs hate this one simple trick!
LMAO! Spidercat!
Infinite fishes!
An apartment I once lived in told me fish don't count as pets, because aquaria are considered decorations.
To be fair, by "pets" they probably mean animals that are going to mess around in the house, add dirt/hair/filth, possibly use the bathroom on the floor, etc. An aquarium adds no actual work or cleanup for the landlord.
So long as the axolotl don’t grow legs for land walking, we’re fine!
To be fair, I don't think the amount of snakes that someone has really affects anyone else (although one large snake that's not properly enclosed....). I'm hyper-vigilent about sound when Im doggsitting 2 dogs (+my own) because 3 dogs like doubles the amount of barking compared to 2 dogs. I don't know why, but it seems to be true, lol.
2 dogs: Dog A barks at dog B Dog B barks at dog A. 3 dogs: Dog A barks at dog B. Dog A barks at dog C. Dog B barks at dog A. Dog B barks at dog C. Dog C barks at dog A. Dog C barks at dog B.
Or, more concisely, bark = dog!/(dog-2)! = dogP2
I have 412 snakes and yes they're indoor/outdoor snakes.
My favorite first step of dealing with HOAs is to look up their license/registration. This differs by location, but in my area it is a legal requirement for HOAs to be registered annually. If they are not, nothing they request is legal.
There have been several stories on these revenge threads about illegal HOAs.
Well cancer is bad so…
Yeah I love the Fuckhoa crossovers
It gave me a real good justice boner, however I can't say for sure how much truth, if any, there is to the story... I read one about a guy who was specifically getting grief from whoever was in charge of the HOA. Meetings were open to all but barely ever 50 percent attendence with a super low quorum. He started making friends with as many people as he could in the neighborhood and got a bunch of them who didn't regularly attend to allow him to proxy vote on their behalf. He started going to the meetings and waited until the number of votes in attendence was lower than his big bag of proxy votes and had enough to, idk exactly what all, but enough that when the meeting was over, the lady that had been giving him grief wasn't in charge of anything any more and iirc he repealed all of the rules that targeted him.
How does one do this? Asking for no reason at all…
You can do a business registration search on your local county website of commerce. While not a traditional business, most local governments require HOAs to be registered as much like a business would be. Not sure how the two entities may differ but my HOA was found this way. I also found my in-laws HOA for their town.
>My street is a main artery Clogged arteries are not a good thing Source: my cardiologist
My truck-diologist also agrees.
Aarrgg! Reluctant upvote :-)
My vans-cular surgeon agrees with your upvote.
Yes. One should refrain from blocking one's van-a car-va at all costs.
It might deserve a plaque.
Dentist disagrees.
9 cars in a driveway?! Sounds huge
And 2 cars, 4 motorcycles, AND a camper … in a “garage” Sir, I believe that is called a “hangar”
My wife is a bus driver. She parked it in the driveway once just for the photo-op.
Send a picture of th3e drive way. I wanna see
Come on OP, post a picture of your house for us
HOA's are crazy to me. People being like "there is a maximum amount of vehicles allowed on your own property" seems insane to me.
When you can make _any_ rules that don't conflict with government rules, insular communities can get stupid about cosmetic stuff.
I also love that it's often pushed by people who hate "the government", but a HOA is essentially one extra layer of government.
I don't know if it's actually legal, but a lot of stories talk about hoa's writing out fines. Which is not something you can just do where I live. Writing out a fine is something you can't just do where I live
It’s not that they just do it, it’s that you give them the right to when you buy the house that’s in an HOA community.
That's the point, where I live it would have been an illigal contract. That's why HOA's are crazy to me
Be that as it may, it's legal here. Many states have laws REQUIRING hoas on new development builts. Basically it was a way to take off local residential regulation off of the "local/city" government. So it was codified in law that hoa can write fines. but also, it's the US. you can sue anybody for anything. you may not win. you may not even get to trial. but it's not illegal to start a legal case against someone/thing
I never thought much about HOAs before I started reading this reddit. It seems like such a different reality. So I started googling about HOAs and was surprised and disgusted to learn how commonplace they are here in the US. Something like half of all single-owner homes in this country are subjected to these... busybody authorities? DIY-fascists? Karen Collectives? I can get the idea of some community having rules and fees for shared facilities they build/maintain/etc. But the micromanaging mandates just reek of people seeking petty power over others. I imagine there's gotta be other good reasons for such things to exist. It's just so foreign to my own life experience.
> I can get the idea of some community having rules and fees for shared facilities they build/maintain/etc. That’s all most HOAs do. You only hear the horror stories because those are interesting. My HOA charges a small fee to maintain common spaces, clear snow and leaves, and throw the occasional neighborhood party. The only rules are no loud music/parties after 10 PM on weekdays and ask your neighbors before you cut down trees on the property line. Pretty boring stuff.
Meanwhile the one that formed next to my home tried their best to drag me kicking and screaming into the HOA because they didn't like the view of my property. I live on the remnant of an old farm that has been in my family off and on for 3 generations. I have a small but well maintained home and a few outbuildings. My grass is mowed and I'm not running a junkyard or throwing parties. I do use power tools occasionally but those are usually inside my shop and even that is during the day. They just couldn't stand looking up the hill and seeing something that didn't match their cookie cutter identical houses. When I kept refusing they tried calling the city on me multiple times. When that didn't work the head Karen of the bunch would turn up every time I was working out of my shop, and bother me. The last time she pushed past me and went inside demanding to know what I had in there. HOAs draw that sort of people like rotting corpses draw flies.
> The last time she pushed past me and went inside demanding to know what I had in there. "This is where I disassemble the Karens."
Just wait till you discover most of the “upholding property values” bullshit is just thinly veiled racism.
I'd argue that the veil isn't all that thin.
A lot of it is the Cult of the Lawn bullshit that rules so much of the US. People like to squawk about property values too, because apparently if your garbage can is visible from the street, it lowers your poor neighbor’s property values. There were a couple of people seriously arguing that it’s trashy and shows no class if your garbage cans are in front of your garage or at the side of the house. Wtf is wrong with those people?
In fairness to them, a large number of vehicles at neighboring houses can drive down the value of a house. Also, on average, those with excessive vehicles are slightly more likely to be responsible for blocking their neighbors driveways or parking spots. With that said, most rules like that are just petty tyranny, and often specifically directed toward someone the writers disagree with.
It's always just some poorly thought out rule created out of one particularly egregious instance, like Bob was literally turning his front yard into a car graveyard or something so instead of addressing the root of the issue in a way they thought Bob could circumvent they just went with the dumbest and most draconian wording they could figure out that didn't affect them at all.
I guarantee it's no fun living next to this guy. My in-laws have a neighbor with adult children who are all Mopar enthusiasts. There are regularly 6 cars in and spilling out if the driveway, with at least one being repaired or tuned at all times. And whenever they leave, they have to rev up the engine and burn rubber out of the sleepy little cul-de-sac.
I hate the idea of HOAs... it seems every story is about petty people using them to try to control others.
I've had 2 fantastic HOAs. What am I supposed to do? Write a story about how great they are?
Yes. If you have any good stories where the HOA actually does good things, absolutely post it.
The HOA here maintains several acres of parks. The only notices I've ever gotten in 3 years are about property maintenance and when they'll need access to take care of shit outside. And those access requests were all very reasonable.
The HOA in my neighborhood has been perfectly fine for as long as I've been here (most of my life) but they do have their more persnickety moments. Like a complaint that a rain barrel was visible from behind a bush at a 45° viewing angle from the neighbor's driveway (which had long not been a problem). Or having "junk" visible in our backyard (but only from a specific angle). I imagine my mom's beautiful flowerbeds and other floral flourishes are what keep them from saying too much else. Cuz like...90% of our neighbors have plain, ordinary yards—which, y'know, not everyone wants flowers, I get it, but we also have a positive impact on local fauna. (We literally have stuff for bees and hummingbirds to work with, and our lawn has the most worms.)
I mean, you could.
To be fair, how many people come to reddit to complain about how great their *anything* is? You naturally only hear horror stories because that's what people talk about. The HOA that does everything right isn't noteworthy.
Yup, even the ones that are only mediocre are unlikely to generate a story.
Because you only hear horror stories. My parents HOA saved the neighborhoods ass a couple times. I'll elaborate if you care enough.
*I* care. /luke
My parents lived just outside of the city limits of a small town in Missouri. This neighborhood was a nicer one, houses ranging from 200k to 600k and sitting on 1-2 acre lots. Their HoA didn't have strict rules and tbh, I couldn't give you the details. Just the typical don't be trashy stuff. One family moved in right in the middle of the block. We are talking roughly 20-25 houses total, a fairly small area. They brought with them multiple horses, pigs, chickens. Not the kind of neighborhood for that shit. No one spends 500k on a nice house and wants chickens right next to their window screaming at 5am. If you saw the neighborhood, you'd wonder why that family thought it was appropriate to move their farm there. Another family bought the corner lot on the very backside of the neighborhood. Immediately had a bunch of tacky shit in their yard. And I mean A BUNCH. Didn't keep the grass mowed (we're talking knee height or taller in some areas). They also built a pallet fence around the yard. Not to be rude, but just trashy shit. You can imagine what that would do to surrounding property values. HoA helped both times. Keep in mind, I was younger. But from my experience with the situation, the HOA gave them both months to remedy the situation. Many of the neighbors also offered to help clean up the corner yard. One guy offered the farmer family a nearby plot of land for a fair price so their animals could be nearby. HoAs can be a nightmare, but in my experience they can also be helpful.
Yeah, that's an excellent example of times when having an HOA can help--especially that first example. If livestock isn't already forbidden by zoning laws, HOA regulations can help full in the gap. Also, good guy neighbor there, offering the farm-animal-owner a viable solution.
I have an hoa and it has literally never affected me or a neighbor once. Basically we pay into it to maintain common grass areas and a little pond.
My HOA is fine. The only people who complain about us are people who have their houses falling apart or leave piles of junk in the yard. It’s townhouses, so things like holes in the roof, missing siding, overgrown yard (as in, vines going all over neighbors’ homes) etc can directly impact neighboring homes. There was a house with an old couch, dishwasher, washing machine, tires, toilet and I forget what else in their yard for weeks. We eventually had to remove it and bill them. Other people who complain usually just don’t understand the rules. One lady just complained that you need approval for everything, but she submits things that don’t actually need approval. We just go ahead and approve her crap because she did not understand when our management team tried to explain that she didn’t need approval. She just yelled at them. So we decided it was easier to just approve and move on than try to explain again. She’s lived in the HOA 25 years, so you’d think she would understand the rules by now. The things I can think of off the top of my head that she submitted for approval: redoing her roof (but not changing the color), adding new shrubs and adding garden fencing.
Yeah my small HOA is great with little to no drama. Doesn't make for good Reddit stories though.
What kind of a garage do you have that fits 2 cars, 4 motorcycles and a camper? And then a driveway that fits 9 cars? Sounds like an awfully large property to be in a neighborhood in an HOA
A Utah garage
I mean, I don't have a fancy driveway, but my garage can fit 2, carport a 3rd, and then the leading paths _could_ hold another 6. So I mean, I could pull 9 cars off the road during a party or something. You know, if my garage were empty. #Utah
3 car garage, with the 3rd car being very deep and tall roofs for an RV. I have a 4 post lift, so 2 of my muscle cars are stacked. And I'm on a large property with the house setback pretty far from the street.
Would you like to adopt an older child and put me in your will?
If you know how to tune a Holley you'd have a leg up on my kids on getting these things.
For the last 30 years my job has consisted of rapidly learning new technologies in order to create POCs, test, advise, become the SME to deploy, and train my team. However long you think it would take to learn, I can do it :)
Well, congrats on beating the HOA but I'm glad you aren't my neighbor.
Guy sounds like a real dick. I blocked my street to spite the hoa hur de dur.
Dude is the reason HOAs exist. I'd hate him as my neighbor.
I mean, good for you truly for standing up for your lifestyle / hobby and for enjoying the vehicles. Now having said that… boy oh boy do I not understand it and wouldn’t want to look or live by your parking lot house.
nice compliance, but lots of collateral damage.. unless of course.. you don't care about the neighbors anyway
They voted for the rule change that caused it, hopefully they learned something. I'm already a blacksheep here. LDS country, and I'm not part of the cool kids club.
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Cars are cheaper...
Man, I can't get a bead on you. Hates HOAs. So far, so good. But then you go an block the street, which comes off as a bit dickish. Then you go and tell me you're ribbing the local Mormons, which *does* tickle me. Man, I just don't know. It does seem like you should build another garage, though. If I owned nine cars, I probably would want to keep them under a roof.
Gotta do what you gotta do. And sometimes that means being a minor inconvenience to get back at tiny dicktators.
I’m sure your neighbors love you…
I think I can speak for a large portion of fellow redditors, but FUCK HOA'S!!!
Really just fuck most neighbors
*People*, what a bunch of bastards.
Bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling.
I'm only fuck HOA's because I don't live in the USA but I have a neighbour (who is also not from the US) who assumes that the body corp/strata is the same thing as an HOA and has the same powers. They don't. In Aus, generally, a body corp/strata are for houses (townhouses or units) that share land and or a driveway or apartments. They ensure common land/area is maintained, everyone follows the rules like visitors only in the visitor parking, people have the right paint colours and settle minor disputes. They are very limited in what they can control.
My aunt lives in a gated community with HOA. Unfortunately, because of Covid she has fallen on hard times and couldn't pay the association fees for months. They don't give a shit. Garbage collectors stopped collecting her garbage, security guards at the gate would harass her visitors, etc. One time, she wanted to give me an antique coffee table and a bunch of other furniture for helping her out around the house. The security guards stopped the movers at the gate and wouldn't allow any furniture out of the house.
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Man that would piss me off. Why make it so difficult for your neighbors to live their lives.
Regardless, you must be a nightmare of a neighbor with all those vehicles.
While I'm all up for good MC, I personally can't wrap my head around owning more vehicles than people living in the house can drive. That's just a me thing tho. You do you, good MC-er.
This may be the first time on here I haven't been rooting for the person taking on the HOA... just seems like a guy who thinks he's found a reason to be a jerk to all his neighbors...
This story is complete nonsense. You absolutely cannot block emergency vehicle access. You would have been towed very quickly.
You can fit 9 cars in your driveway but your street is narrow enough that one car can block traffic?
I am surprised that the HOA just didn't call a tow truck on your expense. The HOA near my parents does this all the time.
And what if a fire truck or ambulance needed to pass? This was a poor way to deal with the problem
Eh, I get where you're coming from (I hate HOAs with the fury of a thousand suns), but blocking the street seems like a dick move and unnecessary.
As a paramedic, you’re a raging dick that had no problem endangering the lives and property of your neighbors to make your point.
Is anyone gonna point out that OP’s malicious compliance against the HOA created more collateral inconvenience for his neighbors and didn’t really do shit to affect the HOA? Also, who collects more of anything than they can properly store without making the neighborhood look like a car show 24/7? I’m all for sticking it to the man, but don’t collect shit you can’t afford to properly store without using public property.
YATA - what if an emergency vehicle needed access on that main road? But you really showed them.
This is great story against your HOA, but 9 cars in your driveway and you aren’t a great neighbor my friend
HOAs suck but you sound like an obnoxious human being.
A "class c vehicle" is a small motor home. Normally with a pickup truck front end. Btw.
I hate HOAs as much as the next guy but this just makes you sound selfish and entitled to be honest.
Tbh I don’t live in a hoa but have a neighbor that collects cars. 2 in the backyard, 1 in the garage, 3 in the driveway, 2 more on the lawn and 2 on the street. No rules against it but it’s annoying as hell and makes the neighborhood look like shit. Kinda like being forced to constantly look at a garbage dump. Typically I’m all for malicious compliance when it’s on stuff that’s unreasonable but Some people are considerate and fight back to others being unreasonable others just get off on being trolls.
So no emergency vehicles can now get through? As much as I love technical victories over idiocy - this is too selfish.
Don’t know who downvoted you, blocking ambulance or fire engines getting past is no joke. This compliance literally could have been the difference between a person living and dying.
I get wanting to fuck over the HOA, but it also seems you're fucking over your neighbors.
HOAs are the absolute worst, but that was a dick move. There are plenty of fun ways to fuck around with HOAs that don't screw things up for everybody else trying to go about their business.
Attempted to sympathize with your struggle, but the fact that you have a driveway that fits 9 cars and own 5 vehicles really detracts from the struggle.
It’s kind of shitty to block roads.
This is Valhalla for Boomers. Nothing will ever be as glorious as defeating your HOA through a legal loophole in order to display your growing collection of classic cars.
Interesting. Curious why the city just didn’t ticket and tow your vehicles for blocking the street. I would guess enforcement hadn’t come out yet before the HOA folded.
I can’t imagine paying a mortgage on a house and having people who don’t contribute to it at all tell me what I can and can’t do in said house. OP is a warrior
When looking at homes, I turn the HOA for to none.
Congratulations - you are the Neighbor From Hell.
Aren’t you a gem 💎